Beginning of the Universe
An infinite past cannot have existed. That means the universe had a beginning. #Whatever begins to exist has a cause. #The universe began to exist (we know this both from the argument above, and from the Big Bang theory). #Therefore, the universe has a cause. 'Creation Theories' "I am the one who made the earth and created people to live on it. With my hands I stretched out the heavens. All the starts are at my command." - Isaiah 45:12 (NLT) 'Big Bang Theory' The Big Bang is entirely consistent with the Bible. The Bible says that the universe began at one moment in time, that the heavens were expanded (past tense), that the heavens are expanded (present tense), and that all of creation is winding down and decaying. The Big Bang theory also requires that the first particles to form were photons. That is, the first thing that existed in our universe was light. Isn't that exactly what the Bible says? Cosmology and astronomy tell us that our sun was formed much later. Isn't that exactly what the Bible says? There is no evidence that any other universe exists. Even if one did, you still have to come up with a cause for those universes, or accept yet another infinite regression. The cause of space and time and matter cannot logically be something made of space and time and matter. That would be a logical impossibility, just like you cannot be your own mother. It has to have a first cause, and that cause must both be not made of a component of the universe and must act without cause. Arguably one of the best astronomers ever, Sir Fred Hoyle, hated the Big Bang. An atheist, he understood that a universe that cannot come about uncaused, out of nothing. He knew that the Big Bang required the "unmoved mover" to set it into motion. He spent most of his career trying to disprove the Big Bang, and actually did more than any other scientist to validate the theory. We even own Hoyle a debt of gratitude for the name "Big Bang." Hoyle was trying to make fun of the theory, and the name stuck. 'Time' Thanks to Albert Einstein, we know that time did indeed start with the Big Bang. Time, space, and matter are inextricably linked (that's what E=mc² means.) You can't have time without space, or matter without time.We've known this since about 1925 and it has been verified countless times since. Time is rubber. It is pliable, bendable. Thanks to Albert Einstein we know that the rate of time's passage changes based upon the speed of an observer and the gravity of its environment. That is, if we made an identical earth but gave it more mass than the original, some things would change dramatically. Yes, we wouldn't be able to stand up under such intense gravity, but other wild things would also happen. We would age at a slower rate on the "denser" earth than on the original earth. Time would pass more slowly because of the higher gravity. We're used to time passing in New York at the same rate it passes in London. It's not that way in space. Time passes more quickly as space expands. The ratio of time's speed to the expansion of space is called the Time Dilation Factor, and it's a constant. We can make predictions about the rate of time's passage by knowing how much space has expanded at a particular point. These are facts beyond dispute 'Young Earth Theory ' The idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old is the product of one man's imagination, and unfortunately a lot of Christians grabbed on to this answer as an argument against evolution, while a lot of atheists grabbed on to this answer as proof that Christians are stupid. Both groups are silly to accept it. First of all, the Bible does not say that one day is equal to 1,000 years. It says that, to God, a day can be like a thousand years, but in the very next sentence it says that a watch can be like a thousand years. A watch is a three hour period a guard observes in the middle of the night. The Bible is not contradicting itself from one sentence to the next; it is making an allegorical comparison. It then reverses the comparison, driving home the point that what is being said is that time is not fixed for God. Second of all, the Bible doesn't say that the earth is 6,000 years old. In both scripture and in our experience, we know that things are accomplished by God through natural means far more often than they are by miraculous intervention. 'Creation in the Biblical and Scientific Sense ' "For the scientist who has lived by faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." ''- Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers'' Time is rubber. It stretches and shrinks, speeds up and slows down based upon the stretch of the space that it's linked to. It also passes at different rates depending upon the viewpoint of the observer. We know all of this to be true thanks to the discoveries of Albert Einstein. The speed of light is constant, but the space that it's crossing is not. Imagine the earth is a balloon, and you set off for Florida at 55 miles per hour. While you drive the balloon is inflated. I-95 keeps stretching out longer and farther as you go. The destination will get farther away, but so will your point of origin, even though you're going the same speed. From where we sit in the universe, it appears as if the universe is about 14.5 billion years old. As space stretches, time passes faster. This correlation of stretch to passage is a universal constant known as the Time Dilation Factor. Astrophysicist Gerald Schroeder took the measurement of our distance to the apparent center or origin point of the universe (where the Big Bang happened) and divided that by the Time Dilation Factor to get an apparent age of the universe at its point of origin. His answer? Six days. So the universe appears at its center to be six days old, and appears from where we are to be 14.5 billion years old. Further out, it will appear to be even older. So both the Genesis account of creation and the scientific view of the age of the earth can be right, at the same time. The earth isn't 6,000 years old. It's 4.5 billion years old. And it's just a few days old. It all depends upon where your stand to look at the earth. Time is relative. All of this is irrelevant, anyway. God is like a painter, standing outside of his painting. What he paints on the canvas (like time, space, and matter) doesn't affect him in any way. Reason for Existing The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz explored the reason there is something rather than nothing. He argued that things exist for one of two reasons: either they are created by something else (and the universe certainly fits in this category) or they exist of their own necessity. Numbers and sets are the most common examples of the second type of thing. Three, for example, isn't created. It doesn't die. It has no beginning and no end. It simply exists of the necessity that there are more than two. Category:Dr. Bobisms